INTRODUCTION
• PC VIDEO
• SLIDE #1
• Today we continue our Haunted House series. In this series, we are examining the effects that fear can have on Christians as well as the church.
• Fear shuts us off from engaging in God’s calling for our life, which in turn keeps the church from fulfilling her calling to reach into the lost world to try to help lead people to Christ!
• Fear makes us inward-focused, isolating us from the world around us and removing us from God's plan to save the world.
• Another thing that fear does to us is that fear causes us to divide people into two categories: us and them.
• This polarized thinking is more combative than missional because of its tendency to isolate.
• In our video clip from Doomsday Preppers, we saw what a spider hole was used for.
• A spider hole is a tactical tool, a strategically placed hole in the ground used to hide as a means of escaping in warlike situations.
• It’s dark, cramped, and isolated. “My plan is to retreat, ride it out, and live to fight another day,” says this man who is taking extreme measures on National Geographic’s show Doomsday Preppers.
• The church is not a spider hole, but some of us might treat it as such.
• Instead of looking at our faith as a way to hide away from an evil world, we need to shine as lights in the darkness so that others can know Jesus and be reconciled to God.
• Our society markets based on fear gets web clicks based on fear, and self-protects based on fear.
• While caution and discernment are biblical, refusing to engage in God's mission to share the gospel and to love others without condition is not.
• Today we are going to look at the issue of FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN. By the way, I am not crawling in the snake-infested tunnel!
• SLIDE #2
• When we seek to engage people with the gospel, we are stepping into the unknown. We do not know how they will respond; we do not know if we will have the right answers, and we think of all the bad things that can happen.
• In our passage today, we will examine three things that will help us to not be stifled by fear of the unknown.
• Let’s turn to 2 Corinthians 5. We will begin with verses 14-17!
• SLIDE #3
• 2 Corinthians 5:14–17 (CSB) — 14 For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If one died for all, then all died. 15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. 16 From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!
• SLIDE #4
SERMON
We can overcome the fear of the unknown by understanding…
I. Our drive.
• One of the ways we can overcome fear of the unknown as we seek to take the gospel to dark sometimes scary world, is to have a grasp on what drives us, what motivated us to even consider sharing the gospel, to carry out our calling?
• We see two main drives in these three verses and one of the results of those drives.
• First, in verse 14, we see that we are to be driven or COMPELLED by the love of Christ.
• The word COMPEL means to HOLD, to KEEP TOGETHER, or to ENCIRCLE, or to HEM IN.
• It refers to someone whose activity has been restricted or narrowed in some way.
• Thus, it can describe someone who is ill or bedridden, as in Matt 4:24 and Acts 28:8 or even someone who is under guard (Luke 22:63).
• It can also refer to someone who is stressed out about a tough decision about their life's direction, as in Luke 12:50 concerning Christ and Phil 1:23 regarding Paul.
• In this context, we see that our driving force, the same thing that drove Paul to do all he did for Jesus, is the love of Jesus!
• When we start to have an awareness of how much Jesus loves us, that love should put us in a position of doing what we do because we are compelled to do so, that we will not let anything stop us for doing what we are called to do!
• I do what I do for Jesus, and I cannot help myself, I have to do it!
• The rest of verse 14 reminds us, since we have reached this conclusion: If one died for all, then all died.
• We are all lost without Him!
• Everyone everywhere deserves to know what Christ has done for them.
• This compulsion to make sure as many people as possible can hear and understand that Christ died for them still drives the church to do what seems to many to be crazy things, like going to remote places on the globe and budgeting decades to create written languages for tribes so they can read a statement like this in the Bible for themselves.
• It also may explain why some in Corinth may consider Paul mad (5:13), as he certainly was excessively compulsive about all this. (College Press Commentary.
• Because of the sacrifice Jesus made on my behalf, not only am I compelled to share the message, but I am compelled to allow that message to change me!
• Because He loved me so much that He died for me, I cannot without shame, frustrate the purpose of His death by living selfishly for myself rather than living for HIM! V 15,17
• 15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!
• I am compelled by the love of Jesus to share the message; to make sure that my life does not get in the way of that passion! LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR!
• Paul talks about being crucified with Christ in Galatians 2:20.
• SLIDE #5
• Galatians 2:20 (CSB) — 20 I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
• As a result of my new life in Christ, verse 16 gives me something else!
• 16 From now on, then, we do not know anyone from a worldly perspective. Even if we have known Christ from a worldly perspective, yet now we no longer know him in this way.
• I do not see people the way I used to! I strive to see them as Jesus sees them.
• Before his conversion, Paul saw Jesus as the world would, a criminal and a false prophet.
• After conversion, he saw Jesus the way God intended.
• When we see Jesus that way, we too will be compelled by His love to do what we are called to do. We will love people like Jesus loves them, even when it is hard.
• Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Jesus, while HE was hanging on the cross!
• Let’s move to verses 18-20
• SLIDE #6
• 2 Corinthians 5:18–20 (CSB) — 18 Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 19 That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf: “Be reconciled to God.”
• SLIDE #7
We can overcome the fear of the unknown by understanding…
II. Our calling.
• When we are compelled by the love of Jesus, we start to understand that His passion is to see lost people saved!
• God used Jesus as the agent for salvation, which would not happen without reconciliation!
• To reconcile speaks of broken relationships being mended or to make peace after war.
• Relationships that were stressed and broken are restored by the removal of what caused the hostility.
• In our case, the hostility was sin, and that hostility was removed by Jesus dying on the cross!
• We are given two jobs, which are really one. First, we are given the ministry of reconciliation!
• That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us.
• If we do not take the message to the lost, who will? Who brought the message to you?
• We are also called to be Ambassadors for Christ!
• A US government's Ambassador is the President's highest-ranking representative to a specific nation abroad.
• They are a spokesperson for the United States to the nation in which they reside, as well as a spokesperson to the United States on behalf of the other nation.
• The Ambassador is skilled in negotiation and has a patient tenacity to accomplish his nation’s goals through a spirit of reconciliation.
• As God’s children on earth, we are his representatives, sent with a mission to see his purposes carried out in our world. We do so most effectively from a stance of reconciliation, not retaliation.
• Let’s turn to verse 21-6:2
• SLIDE #8
• 2 Corinthians 5:21–6:2 (CSB) — 21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 1 Working together with him, we also appeal to you, “Don’t receive the grace of God in vain.” 2 For he says: At an acceptable time I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. See, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!
• SLIDE #9
We can overcome the fear of the unknown by understanding…
III. His sacrifice.
• When we understand the level of His sacrifice, we can also hold onto a couple of thoughts that can help drive the fear away.
• First of all, He died for us. He became sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God, or put another way so that we can be saved.
• With that in mind, we are told in verse one of chapter six that we work together with Him.
• He saved us, He is what us, we are not alone, sometimes we forget that! If God is for us, who can be against us?
• And because of all this, Paul was encouraging his readers not to waste the opportunity. Do not receive the grace of God in vain by not living out your faith. Part of living out that faith is being faithful to both Jesus and His calling for you!
• He is with us, His Spirit is in us, we are not alone.
• We have been given the greatest gift, the gift of eternal life through Jesus.
• Don't accept that gift, and then later walk away from it!
• The other thing we need to know about His sacrifice is that on the day we needed salvation, He was there for us, He opened the door for us.
• If He was willing to do that for me, I owe it to others to help them come to Jesus.
• Today is the day of salvation!
CONCLUSION
• God has given believers a call to be his ambassadors, carrying his message of reconciliation to the world.
• We can overcome the fear of the unknown and reconcile a lost world to God.
